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Left Behind

The Masculine Journey / Sam Main
The Truth Network Radio
October 12, 2024 12:30 pm

Left Behind

The Masculine Journey / Sam Main

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October 12, 2024 12:30 pm

Welcome fellow adventurers! This week, the guys talk about the things that we give up to follow Jesus. The clips are from "Good Morning Vietnam," "LOTR," and "Picard."

Be sure to check out our other podcasts, Masculine Journey After Hours and Masculine Journey Joyride for more great content!

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This is the Truth Network Podcast. But your clip deals with the future, so we'll talk about that a little bit later.

That's true. Yeah, but Jim, it's your topic this week. You want to tell us a little bit about it?

I would if I could remember what the topic was, but actually my wife and I saw The Forge a few weeks ago, which we thoroughly enjoyed. But what hit me in that was what I've given up to follow Christ. And there was a component of, what do I miss? So I did probably relay that to you. I confused everybody with what the topic was, so I decided to be confused myself, which is not a hard thing for me. But it was, you know, what did change? What did I leave behind in pursuing Jesus?

And I've never liked that phrase. He was pursuing me. I had very little to do with it, but I found Jesus now.

He found me and rattled my cage enough, so I finally realized he was pursuing me. But it really is about what, if anything, we've sacrificed in the process of following Christ. Okay. Interesting to see how this plays out. So I listened to all the clips with you guys before the show, and so we'll see where God takes it.

It's going to be fun. But Robby, you actually have the first clip, so if you want to tell us a little bit about that or not, it's okay. Oh, absolutely.

Yeah. So when I thought about, you know, what did I give up to follow Jesus, immediately in the process, you know, I picked up a book by Norman Vincent Peale, actually a tape series that was along the same lines. It was The Power of Positive Thinking, which I thought was going to help me sell more cars. You might want to explain what tapes are. Yeah, tapes, you know, cassette tapes for those who aren't used to playing in the car before we had CDs, before we had MP3s. But anyway, one of the first things the tape series said was that you had to get up an hour early in order to read the Bible, and then you had to pray before you even do that because you won't be able to understand the Bible if you don't do that. Well, that seemed like a ludicrous idea to me at the time, I can remember.

But I spent a hundred and some odd dollars on this series. I was, you know, give it whatever. If that's what I'm supposed to do, you know, that's what I started to do.

And that process, literally as I read through the Bible, I got saved by the Bible, which was precious in of itself. But what I learned was that it radically changed my mornings, because my mornings used to be like, you know, if I was supposed to be at work at 730, you know, if I got up at 710, I was kind of cutting it close. But I, you know, there was no morning, I was immediately at work, I was immediately in the grind, and there was no joy in the morning, there was no life in the morning, there was just a drudgery of, I have to get up, I have to get to work, I have to somehow or another make this process work. And, you know, I think about this clip is from the movie, you know, Good Morning Vietnam. And these poor soldiers, you can imagine the drudgery they woke up to every single morning of life, until Robin Williams came on the scene. And you may be familiar with 16th Psalm, in his presence is fullness of joy at his right hand, his pleasure is forevermore. And if you don't have joy and pleasures from listening to this clip, I don't know what to tell you.

But you guys can play it Sam. Nope, it didn't start at the beginning. Yep, you have to start at the very beginning.

It's a very good place to start. When you read you begin with ABC and when you sing you begin with Do-Re-Bi. You quit talking now. Here we go. Good morning Vietnam. Hey, this is not a test. This is rock and roll.

Time to rock it from the Delta to the DMZ. Is that me or does that sound like an Elvis Presley movie? Viva Da Nang. Oh, Viva Da Nang. Da Nang me, Da Nang me.

Why don't they get a rope and hang me? Hey, is it a little too early for being that loud? Hey, too late. It's 0600.

What's the O stand for? Oh my God, it's early. Speaking of early, how about that Cro-Magnon Marty Drywood?

Thank you, Marty, for silky smooth sound. Make me sound like Peggy Lee. Here's a little riddle for you. What's the difference between the Army and the Cub Scouts?

Cub Scouts don't have heavy artillery. Stalking out the field today. Hi, what's your name? My name's Bob River. Bob, what do you do? I'm in artillery.

Thank you, Bob. Can we play anything for you? Anything. Just play it loud, okay? Wrong speed. We've got it on the wrong speed.

For those of you who are recovering from a hangover that's going to sound just right. Let's pull it right back down here. Let's try a little faster. See if that picks it up a little bit. Let's get up on 78.

Those pilots are gone right now. I really like the music. I really like the music.

I really like the music. Oh, still a bad song. Hey, wait a minute.

Let's try something. Let's play this backwards and see if it gets any better. This new viv, Freddy is a devil.

This new viv, Freddy is a devil. Picture a man going on a journey beyond sight and sound. He's left Crete. He's entered the demilitarized zone.

All right. Hey, what is this demilitarized zone? What do they mean? Police action.

What is a demilitarized zone? Sounds like something out of the Wizard of Oz. Oh, no. Don't go in there. Oh, hee-haw. Ho Chi Minh. Oh, look. You've landed in Saigon. You're among the little people now.

We represent the Arvan Army, the Arvan Army. Oh, no. Follow the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Follow the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Oh, I'll get you, my pretty. Oh, my God. It's the Wicked Witch of the North. It's Hanoy Hannah.

It's Hanoy Hannah. So, anyway, you know, for me in my life, you know, I can't even – there's no expressing the value of what happened in what I gave up, which was sleep and or that drudgery of what the mornings used to be to the absolute joy that I get every single morning of my life by spending that time with Christ. And I think that where I'm pushing, I think where God has me pushing, where I try to be pushing, is to see how much more time I can give up in order to get – in other words, he'll lose his life, will gain it. And so much of what we'll hear, I think, in tonight's show, as I heard the pre-show like you did, is this people gave up things, they got things that were just, you know, way on measure. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Harold, is there anything you'd like to share on this topic for us? Well, as normal, I do not have a clip. It's a rare thing when I do. But what I had to give up was anger. As far back as I can think, I was always an angry little critter, on edge, angry, shouting. I had road rage before they knew what to call it. And I would go down the road disparaging people's IQ, accusing them of getting their driver's license out of a cracker-jack box, et cetera.

And I had to give that up, but I don't miss it. Yeah, I thought of a clip for you. We could get to one from, oh, the Will Ferrell Christmas movie. He's an angry little elf, isn't he? That was – we established last week, he's taller than hobbits and dwarves. Oh, that's true. But he's in an elf range. Yeah, he could be an angry little elf. Sorry, Harold.

Oh, no problem at all. He gave up anger. That's true. It was elf, actually. It was elf, you're right. I can't believe I couldn't think of that one. Never made the connection. What do you know? Not angry little elf, but elf.

Just elf. Well, yeah, anger is a tough one. That's one that keeps coming around for me. But we don't really have time for another clip, so we will talk about some other things. What do you think we might talk about? We're going to talk about a boot camp that's coming up.

We have a boot camp coming up November 20 something. First, thank you through 24th. I knew that. I say it every week. Don't ask me how it relates to Thanksgiving.

I'll get it wrong again. Well, it's the week before Thanksgiving. Okay. Yeah, yeah. We established that last week after about four times.

Eventually we got it. It was the weekend before Thanksgiving. Yeah, the Thursday night, you will be enjoying boot camp will be the week before you enjoy a football game after eating turkey, right? Yeah, exactly. That's how it works out.

Yeah. Are we going to have turkey? No, we're going to have Andy will not be enjoying actually have that. It's we're having brisket. Oh, big time brisket is going to happen Thursday night. You don't want to miss it. The food is going to be like it is.

Yeah. Or hook or chain or whatever. It's got to be off of something. It'll be off something off the grill. Maybe hopefully you plan on burning. But how would they how would they find information about the boot camp? Andy? How would they do that?

They could go to masculine journey.org. That's right. And right at the very top, it says register for the boot camp. It's a big red banner. You can't really miss it. I guess you could.

But you just click on that. And as we said before, if finances are an issue, please don't let that be a problem. You know, obviously, we're not made of money here. But we do have people that donate and say, Hey, we'd love to help sponsor somebody at camp or help with the camp.

And so we do have some funds available if that's your position. We've all been there. We all have probably be there again at some point, hopefully not. But we've all been there at some point in our life. So don't let that keep you from coming. And we'd love to have you.

Yeah. And if you're one of those that know you can't make it, you can be praying for that God will open the door for the people he wants to come. Those prayers are gigantic. They are, you know, and we find that the camps are usually pretty opposed. Meaning that if you don't make plans to come, I promise you something will come up that you can't come. It we see it happen. I've invited some of the same people for years.

I know God will get them there eventually, when it's their time to be there. But you know, usually what I hear as well, I was planning to come but this came up. And so it's like anything else. So you either plan to come to it or something will come up and get in the way because life keeps coming.

Right? Anybody else want to add anything for we go into break? We got a break coming up here pretty soon. When we come out of the break, you'll be hearing the story of Matthew. Matthew who? The fellow that followed Jesus. Oh, well, there's a lot about it for tax collector, not Matthew who from the who bill, right? Yeah. Well, there's lots of Matthews who called Jesus. I'm assuming this is this is the first time. Oh, the original the disciple.

Oh, well, there's a tax collector. Okay, that guy. Yeah.

Okay. So go to masculine journey.org to register for the boot camp and we will talk with you after the break. We'll see you tonight. What we have at our boot camp is something that makes you stronger and gives you the strength to go on your regular walk with God. It's something that will make you be bigger than you were when you got there. But what kind of inspired you to come up this weekend? Oh, my goodness, just my faith in general. You know, my father passed down that heritage of just that Christian life, that Christian faith and just godly morals and principles. And he's instilled that in my life and I have children as well.

And I want to instill that in their life. So when I get an opportunity to do something like this, I jump on it. I just want to be here and I'm glad to be here.

It's great opportunity. We're definitely glad to have you here as well. Any talk that stuck out to you this week that's really just kind of made your heart come alive with that fire back in? Yeah, probably one thing that just stands out to me is john 15 is just not being alone. Know that I have Christ on my side. I can't do anything without him. And I need him in my life. I'm a very private person.

I like to do things on my own. I don't like to ask for help. So that's hard for me to know I've got to ask Jesus for something and then also just to rely on a band of brothers that I can look to and turn to and say, Hey, guys, I need help.

I can't do this all register today at masculine journey.org. Hearing the call, he responded in faith and followed the light and the way. And leaving the people so puzzled he found the greed in his heart was no longer around. And it's hard to imagine the freedom we find from the things we leave behind. Jim, remind us what we're talking about today. We are talking about what we've given up so that we can follow Christ.

And some of it's voluntary, some of it's not. And forget what I said just before the break. Okay. Well, you're actually up with the next clip. And I get to keep talking. You do the gift that just keeps on giving.

That's one way to look or maybe not. Uh, as I said earlier, we saw a movie that inspired this and what I gave up was pretty much the same thing. The kid gave up, but this clip has absolutely nothing to do with that. This is what really turned me to the point of seeking Jesus.

And what I gave up was different. This is Frodo looking at, they call it a mirror. It's actually a pool of water and Galadriel's working magic over it. If magic scares you, don't worry.

This won't bleed out over the air. But this is him seeing himself and some of what his future will bring. And we'll talk more about that afterwards. Will you look into the mirror? What will I see? Even the wisest cannot tell. For the mirror shows many things.

Things that were, things that are, and some things that have not yet come to pass. This task was appointed to you. And if you do not find a way, no one will. Then I know what I must do.

It's just, I'm afraid to do it. A very long time ago, I was a police officer in Charleston. And I was 25 and cocky, as most 25-year-olds are. But I did have a heart for other people I wanted to serve.

I was doing that, loved it. And I struggled with the possibility of ever using my weapon in the line of duty. I wasn't sure I could shoot to defend myself.

I sort of decided I could if it was to save someone else's life. But there was a night that was the night after one of our fellow officers had been killed in the line of duty. He was shot with his own weapon. And there were three of us in a parking lot talking about wanting to find that guy. And during that talk, and this was like two in the morning in front of College of Charleston, we all thought we were shot at. And we yelled and a kid popped up and started running away. And I realized in that moment, as I was chasing after him, I could have shot him in the back as he was running away because we thought he had threatened us. It turned out he was unarmed, he was drunk, he had smashed out the window of a car. But because of where our minds were in that moment, we thought we were attacked. And when I realized I could very easily, fortunately he's okay, he quartered himself and got in a little trouble, but not nearly what we would have if we had opened fire on him. Talking later, all of us felt like that was going to happen.

If he had not quartered himself, it would have been ugly. And that broke me and broke my heart. I realized I'm not the good person that I think I am. And I'd always had God in my life from earliest memories.

But he was my backup plan. And in that moment, it was when I realized that I did need a Savior because I was not a good person, as I had decided everybody was at some level early in my life. And that changed my life in a way. But what I had to give up, and like Frodo, I knew what I had to do, but I was scared. What I gave up, and what I had to give up at that point in my life, was control. And later I realized, well, you know, our thinking we're in control in our lives is an illusion.

God's in control, but if we don't acknowledge that, then we'll be making a lot of mistakes until we do. Originally when I came up with the topic, I thought it was going to be the same as the kids. And I did do this. I was a, I loved gaming. I had played games since I was a, well, since before I was a teenager, but I got my first war game when I was 14 and loved it and pursued it and did it at a very high level of ability.

And then when computers took over, it sort of ruined war games, but that was another addiction that entered, because I wanted to be the warrior, but the only place I was doing that was on computers later in life and on board games earlier. But there are, I mean, we all have different sacrifices we're going to talk about, and I'll hush and give others a shot, but we are going to give up something. And that was a big point in the movie to follow Christ.

And that varies for each of us. Yeah. And I, the question, I guess that you have to come down to is why is God calling me to give up something? Obviously it's for my betterment, right? I know it's always something that you don't want to let go of, you know, initially, and that's why it's a sacrifice because you think you're going to lose something you care about or something that's really important to you or fill in the blank, something you can't live without, but God knows that it's the opposite. You know, it's keeping you in bondage and he's trying to give you a level of freedom, right? That you've never felt before, right? Or to give you more joy than you've ever felt before. Like Robby talked about, even though he gets no sleep, he still gets lots of joy, you know? And so he has that.

He's replaced sleep with joy. Anyway, uh, Danny, uh, you actually have the next clip. Would you like to talk about it first or what would you like to do? Yeah, we'll talk about it from the series Picard to Star Trek. Uh, one of the last things they've done with, uh, the Star Trek series or whatever and Picard and it's toward the end of the series and they have gone back in time trying to prevent something from happening. It'd been a while since I saw the thing, but the, so they're all in the past and, and a clip is winding down there, get ready to go back home and one guy named Chris is telling him he's staying, which is going to mess up time.

It's going to create all kinds of chaos in most people's mind. But anyway, so he, but he's given the reason in this clip why he stayed and we can talk about it on the back side. Well, as you like. Now, are we all ready to go home?

Bags packed? No, I'm staying. Chris, you know, you can't do that. The timeline, I never fit, you know, nothing stuck. I mean, I was living alone on a cargo ship with five holographic versions of myself.

I'm very encouraging. But then I met you. I never had a family in any real way. You changed all that.

All of you did. This is where I belong. Come home.

Make a good future. Maybe it was always supposed to be this way. Time's a funny thing. Yes, it is.

Interesting. The, uh, I guess from the earliest moments I can remember like school and, and I think is, I struggled, fit then, or it felt like I did anyway. And, you know, carry that on into high school.

Um, yeah, I made the joke for years. You know, I was a skinny curly haired kid enough. I've overcome that, you know, both now bald and, uh, but all of that is, is, is kind of an agreement I'd made somewhere that I just was not very lovable and I didn't fit in anywhere. And just recently, I mean, it's taken 56 years, a little slow, I guess, but, um, that I realized that that wasn't true.

It was an agreement I had made. And, you know, I guess to tie it into the topic, I'm like, Chris, I've left behind those things that I thought were, you know, just, you know, hanging out with different people, you know, of course came to addiction, you know, come out all that and that kind of thing. But, but watching what God has done and have left that behind because I now realize I do fit in, people do love me and I can fit in about anywhere, you know, in addictions, it was kind of being like a chameleon, but, you know, and I think, but there is a part of that, that, that is true. The, the, the, the redeemed part of that is I can relate to people on different levels and just about fit in just about anywhere.

I hadn't found a church or anything that I can in just a few minutes, make a friend or something. So that's kind of the, the redemption of it all. And you know, that's, that's, that's kind of what God has done. So that's pretty cool, Danny. Thank you. Yeah.

It's pretty amazing. And I would ask you to ask yourself, you know, what has God asked me to step away from? You know, what is he wanted me to give up to where I can have something more in return? I mean, would any of you that's talked so far, would you go back Robby to the way it was before? No, no. Danny, what about you, Jim? That'd be a no. He's shaking his head, but that would be a no from Jim as well.

So I would just ask you to ask him, what do we need to do and let that go. And while you're at it, love somebody well this week, and we're going to let the music kind of play out for the rest of it. And we'll see in the after hours. So if you don't know what that is, go to any podcast location and look up after hours. We'll masculine journey after hours. Thank you. There's probably more than one. This is the truth network.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-10-12 14:59:24 / 2024-10-12 15:09:17 / 10

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